Clearwater, Florida – Lydia Maria Chako, a 39-year-old Clearwater woman was jailed after she allegedly tried to throw her 3-month-old child into the ocean because she believed the child was possessed by demons.

According to Clearwater police, officers were called to a Clearwater apartment complex after a property manager discovered that Chako’s apartment had become flooded.

The manager stated that when she knocked on the door and listened for a reply, Chako answered with disturbing comments about her child being covered in snaked and lizards. She was also throwing things, claiming that she was trying to keep “demons” from possessing her child.

Investigators say Chako was then observed walking away from the scene while holding the infant by his feet.

Officers found Chako partially naked while standing on a sea wall on Palm Bluff. She reportedly held the child as if she was preparing to drop him into the ocean.

Chako was apprehended after a brief struggle. The child is now in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

MARTINSBURG – A Berkeley County man accused of starving of his 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter and forcing them to sleep in an unfinished basement pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of child abuse causing serious bodily injury as part of a plea agreement.

Jesse A. Lafferty, 34, who is currently incarcerated at Eastern Regional Jail, was originally named in a seven-count indictment issued in February 2011 by a Berkeley County grand jury. The agreement resulted in the dismissal of the remaining counts.

Lafferty is scheduled to be sentenced July 16 by West Virginia 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge Christopher Wilkes and is represented by local attorney Christopher Prezioso. As part of the plea agreement, the court will be unfettered in sentencing. Lafferty faces two to 10 years in prison on each of the counts.

“I willfully withheld food from my children in order to punish them, which led to neglect and malnutrition, sir,” Lafferty told the court.

Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Pamela Games-Neely told the court that the state’s evidence would show that there were periods of time where food was withheld from the two victims for more than 24 hours at a time as punishment and that during certain weeks the children were sometimes not fed for periods of three to four days. When the children were rescued by authorities, Games-Neely said they were found to be severely malnourished and had distended abdomens similar to starving children from third-world countries.

“Let the record show that the defendant has executed the written guilty plea form. … Sir, are you sure this is how you want to resolve this matter?” Wilkes asked the defendant.

“Yes,” responded Lafferty, who was shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.

Dalina Nicholas, a 39-year-old Florida woman was arrested in Georgia after she allegedly pimped out her 6-year-old daughter in exchange for crack cocaine.

According to Columbus Police, an investigation was launched back in January after a homeless man flagged down a patrol car and told the officer that he knew of a young girl who was being sexually abused by several men.

The informant told detectives that the abuse had been ongoing for about two years and that the child’s mother had been using drugs. He went on to say that the child’s mother, later identified as Dalina Nicholas, accepted $20 from a man in exchange for having sex with her 6-year-old daughter.

The little girl was told to strip naked and lay on a mattress so the man could have oral sex with her. The girl later confided in the homeless man about the sexual abuse and asked him to help her make it stop.

When police interviewed Nicholas, she denied that her daughter was being sexually abused, however the girl provided detectives with a detailed account of the abuse and the various men she was forced to have sex with.

The little girl told detectives that the abuse occurred in her home and that the men would smoke “glass cigarettes” with her mother when the men came over to assault her. She also stated that her mother asked her to urinate into a cup on several occasions. Police believe Nicholas used the urine to pass drug screens.

Jacksonville, Ark. (The Weekly Vice) – Courtney Drager, a 21-year-old Arkansas woman was jailed Tuesday after she allegedly put her baby into a choke hold and then swung the infant around like a rag doll.

According to the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were dispatched Tuesday night after Drager’s mother called 911 to report that her daughter was abusing her infant child.

During the call, 911 operators could hear a woman screaming and yelling in the background. The sound of a crying baby could also be heard.

Drager’s mother told deputies that she arrived home from the store to find Drager holding the child by the neck in a choke hold. Drager then swung the infant around by the child’s limbs.

Drager’s mother wrestled the baby away from the out-of-control mother. She then fled to a bedroom with the child, locked the door and called 911.

Arriving deputies interviewed Drager who stated that she “just wanted to take her son and leave” and didn’t want anyone to tell her how to care for her child. She stated that she was a “new” mother and would make mistakes.

The imprisoned father of two Texas children found living in an abandoned school bus is claiming the home was only meant to be temporary.

Mark Shorten said he planned to build a house on a wooded lot near Houston before he and his wife were arrested for embezzlement in 2010. Child welfare officials took custody of his children earlier this week after the siblings — a 5-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl — were found living in the dilapidated bus at the end of a muddy, one-lane road in Splendora, home to one of the poorest school districts in the state.

Fox affiliate KRIV-TV reported Thursday that no charges have been filed yet in the case. The children’s parents are in federal prison for stealing money from victims of Hurricane Ike, which struck in 2008, according to the station.

The postal carrier saw the kids Wednesday near Houston, and the two were swiftly placed in foster care while authorities investigate.

Every hour of every day, hundreds of people need essential human services – they are looking for training, employment, food pantries, help for an aging parent, addiction prevention programs for their teenage children, affordable housing options, support groups and ways of becoming part of their community. 2-1-1 allows people to give help and to get help.

In 2007, a 26-year-old Texas youth pastor named Thomas Jason Fortenberry organized a reality show-style activity for four, hand-selected young parishioners. All were minors, and girls. The game, as he’d devised it, was inspired by Fear Factor and involved drizzling large amounts of honey on them, after which they were instructed to “take a shower and wash the honey” off. No red flags there!

But Fortenberry, now 30, was actually videotaping the girls, The Smoking Gun reports, with a camera he’d rigged up in the church bathroom. And no one would have ever been the wiser had he not gone on to date and eventually become engaged to one of those girls a few years later. In an attempt at clearing his conscience, Fortenberry recently admitted to his now 21-year-old fiancee that he’d taped her and her friends those years ago. (She and one other were 17 at the time; the two others were 15.) She wasn’t exactly enchanted with the revelation, and told the authorities. Fortenberry later admitted only to having “done things that he should not have done.”